Read Online A Grave for Lassiter by Loren Zane Grey - Free Book Online

money in his pocket. Somebody got it before then.”
    â€œTwo thousand dollars, so Kiley claims. We’ll split it, then you git me to the doc. . . .”
    â€œTwo thousand is what Farrell figured my scalp was worth?”
    â€œHe’ll likely pay more’n that to git you next time.” Cole’s voice was growing weaker.
    â€œWho’s this Pete you were with?” Lassiter wanted to know.
    â€œWorks with me out at Farrell’s Twin Horn.”
    â€œOld man Borodenker owned Twin Horn. How’d Farrell get it?”
    But the question went unanswered. Barney Cole was dead.
    Lassiter had a sour taste in his mouth. On his first night back he’d been forced to kill a man. Only because he’d been curious about his own grave. He left Cole where he lay, but did unsaddle the man’s horse down on the road and turn it loose. The animal, in Lassiter’s judgement, was more deserving than its late, renegade owner.
    As he rode toward the haze of Bluegate lights, he wondered what Roma was doing this night. Perhaps by now she was back on the road with Doc and Rex. He hadn’t wanted to leave her behind, but it couldn’t be helped. Returning to Bluegate was like entering a cave filled with rattlesnakes. No matter where you stepped, there was danger. Above all, after what she had done for him over the past months, he couldn’t end it all by risking her life.
    A gentle breeze was blowing down from Northguard Pass as he entered town, carrying with it the perfume of spring flowers, the tang of chaparral. The boardwalks were crowded and the streets choked with wagons, buggies, and saddlehorses. Small boys hooted and hollered in games of their own. The three-quarter moon was unblemished at last by clouds. It gilded the rocks high on a mountain known as Las Casitas, crowned with boulders the size of small houses, named by the Spanish early in the last century.
    Voices were everywhere, boots and women’s slippers scraped on the walks. Doors slammed at business establishments. A woman’s trilling laughter, a man’s shout as a high-stepping saddler nearly ran him down, the creak of wagon wheels all filled the air.
    In his hurried trip north, Lassiter had lost all track of time, but he guessed it must be Saturday night because of all the activity. An unlucky night for one Barney Cole, who hadn’t wanted to investigate a transient in the town cemetery, but who had been talked into it by Pete Bromley. Such were the narrow margins between the living and the dead on the frontier.
    Lassiter shivered. He had witnessed so much killing in his lifetime. It was the reason he shied from marriage, not wanting a widow left behind because of the way he lived, always on the threshhold of danger. Nor would he allow himself a lasting relationship with a woman, even without marriage. If left alone, her tears would be as copious as any grieving widow’s. Some people thought him callous. Some, like Kane Farrell, hated him because he spoiled their game.
    By now, Herm Falconer should be running the freight line, his leg wound finally healed. At least his niece would be relieved of that responsibility. With Herm to watch over her, Lassiter was sure the girl could resist Vance Vanderson’s charms.
    Thinking of Vance made him clench his teeth. Vanderson deserved a good punch in the nose for fleeing like a coward that day up at the mine. Perhaps by now Herm had gotten a tighter rein on his stepson.
    After the business out at the graveyard, he needed a drink. He left his horse at the crowded rack in front of the Bluegate Mercantile. Perhaps less conspicuous than if he tied it at the saloon hitchrack, he was thinking.
    As he angled across the busy street, he would probably be taken for a drifter, with his flat-crowned black hat pulled low, his faded wool shirt, canvas jacket and pants. The full beard hid most of his face. The eyes, however, were not those of a drifter. They were alert and